So I saw John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum the other night and it was great. I made a video about John Wick earlier this year where I discussed the message of the movie and my fangirlhood towards it. The first John Wick was beyond awesome. The second John Wick was good too. The third one? Well, it wasn't as good as the second (which wasn't as good as the first), but it's still a John Wick movie. And what makes a movie a John Wick movie?
- An abundance of action scenes. (The script is secondary.)
- Big guns, again in abundance.
- Keanu Reeves acting poorly.
Granted, there might have been too much action in this one. Some fighting scenes didn't seem to end, and the last one was quite monotonous, compared to earlier fights where John used horses, for example. Also the guy he fights last isn't the kind of arch enemy nemesis that the scene would have deserved. (Not to mention that glass room fights are such a cliche.)
But guns and weapons! There were handguns, shotguns, knives, chisels, horses, belts, motorcycles, ropes, armed dogs, unarmed dogs, John Wick's hands... the list goes on. Although I was kind of expecting a cannon at some point. But it's okay. The horses make up for it.
And finally, Keanu Reeves. Nothing in the series would work without Keanu Reeves. Why? Because he's the only actor in the entire world who can get away with bad acting. Anyone else in the role would just ruin it. The whole point of the character is that he grunts one or two-word responses to events. He obviously isn't a very good talker. He lets his actions speak for him. So when he does have to speak, he speaks shortly, and in a fake, tasteless way. The Keanu Reeves way. It's beautiful.
I laughed out loud several times during JW3. Some lines were truly great. I even suspected a Matrix reference in one scene - and no, I don't mean the fact that both Neo and Morpheus are in the movie. And while the script was undoubtedly of lower quality than that of the first two - John makes some weird and unnatural choices at times - I still enjoyed the movie.
Because John Wick is epic.
RK